I entirely agree with you, but notice what follows from this: Person X’s decision procedure (and his assignments of subjective probabilities, if we’re serious about the latter) ought not to have a “discontinuity” depending on whether some numerically distinct being Y is either “exactly the same” or “ever so slightly different” from X.
Sounds right, in most cases only the broadest strokes of the algorithm matters. For simple things with a low number of possible states like almost all game theory example the notion of personhood does not really have any use. There are however computations that use things like large swats of your memory or your entire visual field simultaneously, and those tends to be the ones were the concepts do matter.
I entirely agree with you, but notice what follows from this: Person X’s decision procedure (and his assignments of subjective probabilities, if we’re serious about the latter) ought not to have a “discontinuity” depending on whether some numerically distinct being Y is either “exactly the same” or “ever so slightly different” from X.
Sounds right, in most cases only the broadest strokes of the algorithm matters. For simple things with a low number of possible states like almost all game theory example the notion of personhood does not really have any use. There are however computations that use things like large swats of your memory or your entire visual field simultaneously, and those tends to be the ones were the concepts do matter.